Back to article list

Broken Sword + Nintendo Ds = ?
By Patrick
Submitted on 2007-09-28

Why Broken Sword and Revolution should be a success on the Nintendo DS

So, a new chapter and a new generation in the timeless Broken Sword franchise appears to be nearing completion, and the new generation looks set to jump back to the old, and dare we say more successful times.
Tony Warriner, a prominent developer at Revolution and somebody who has been involved with the Broken Sword franchise since the beginning, first made mention of the idea of Broken Sword on the Nintendo DS earlier in the year. This idea captured the imagination of the legions of fans thirsting for more adventures with George Stobbart and Nico Collard, and soon grew immensely in popularity. So much so, in fact, that Tony Warriner- seemingly serious and in need of support for the idea- began an online petition to move the series onto the DS, a petition that has attracted the signatures of thousands of fans from across the world.
It appears that his workmates have taken heed to both the petition and the voice of fans and, whilst nothing has been confirmed officially, there have been enough hints and quotes to make a sound conclusion that we certainly haven’t seen the last of Mr Stobbart.
But the question is, has Broken Sword bowed out of the leagues of main-stream gaming in favour of hand-held gaming?
Probably.
Is that a bad thing?
Definitely not. And here are the reasons why…

Nintendo DS

Aah, the Nintendo DS. For me personally, Nintendo have never offered my favourite computers. There have always been too many weird Japanese games for my liking and that variety of colourful Poke Môn games always seem so pointless.
But I will give Nintendo credit for one thing- they are always brave enough to come up with the new ideas. They evolved the control pad back in the early 90s and used mini-CD’s to good effect with the Gamecube, to name but two past examples.
That brings my nicely on to perhaps the two most controversial and biggest changes to gaming since the transition from 2d to 3d. The Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii.
Both the DS and Wii offer a new dimension to gaming, a new form of interaction that might suit some (and create some brand new fans) and not others, who are set firmly behind the more common direction the new generation machines from Sony and Microsoft are undertaking. This is why I think Nintendo are set aside from the supposed 3-way war to be crowned king of the new console generation- the machines they offer differ to greatly from the power-house rival machines. I believe that this can only be a good thing across the entire face of the gaming world.
But, I digress. I want to focus on the hand-held systems of the new era; the DS and the PlayStation Portable. The two machines that are competing for the hand-held bragging rights, and yet the two machines that differ so deeply in what they have on offer.
The PSP offers you the PlayStation 2, more or less, in your hands. An achievement in its own right.
But what the DS lacks in power, it makes up for in originality; a handheld console based around a never-before-seen control system, and therefore games that make full use of the touch-screen in a way that the PSP never could. The question is do you really want a power-house, like the PSP, as a handheld? Handheld systems by tradition, after all, have always been based on more light-hearted affairs, less serious; the kind of games that you can pick up and put down with equal ease.
I suppose what it comes down to is personal taste; some people will think it is fantastic that you can play the PS2 on the move, and therefore will attract perhaps a new handheld fan base. If you want a more traditional style of handheld gaming, you are more likely to go for the DS.
Focusing now on the DS, it is the system that offers you the most traditional evolution of handheld gaming, the handheld gaming most of us will be most familiar with. It is all presented in fair graphics- as powerful as the Nintendo 64 was- and with the unique touch-screen control system.
I will now discuss why I believe that Broken Sword will be a success on the Nintendo DS if the series is headed that way as we think.

Demands and Pressure

After Revolution downsized their scale after Broken Sword 3, we all wondered if we’d ever see a Broken Sword game again. It seemed as though they had struggled with the scale of cost, dealing with every aspect of bringing the game to the shelves themselves.
The big reason for this, of course, was they had to bring Broken Sword bang up-to-date. Back in the mid-90s, games in 3d were very much in their early days and many of the best titles, Broken Sword amongst them, relied on the full potential of 2d graphics, which could by those who knew best be utilised very well.
The main success points of the first two games- their colourful cartoon graphics, the detail, the attention and the atmosphere that this brought- was something that the series may have left behind when it was decided that, quite rightly, the new game was going to be 3d.
Of course, the game, had it remained the same in style, would have looked dated and old up against games that were now making great use of 3d engines. Whilst fans of the series wouldn’t have minded this, the media and critics would have pasted and blasted the game, and attracting new fans to the series would have been impossible.
So Broken Sword 3 took on a Tomb Raider-style feel, directly controlling George and Nico in a fully rendered 3d world. But what was missing? Something was.
It felt too “real”. The “Broken Sword Feeling”, fans will know that feeling, wasn’t quite present, and nobody seemed quite able to put their finger on why.
The cartoon graphical appeal, full of colour and humour and detail, had surrendered to a more real-world look. It was perhaps too great a change from what we were used to, to stomach.
So none of us really harboured any hopes of seeing Broken Sword 4 after the downsize until it was announced- and joy behold, Charles Cecil had swallowed his words and confirmed he was reviving the original adventure genre from the dead.
Only, the game was once again going to be in full 3d, possible due to the help of both THQ and Sumo Digital.
Ah. Remember Monkey Island anybody? It failed miserably when they tried to paste the original formula into a 3d mould. So with both great excitement and nervousness, we waited for the release.
I thought Broken Sword 4 was a great game, I thought it brought back something of the original in the control system sense, and I thought the graphics were stunning. I also thought, and indeed still think that it is as near to the original Broken Sword style as we were going to get without Revolution actually going back to the 2d engine.
The demands of main-stream gamers was a challenge Revolution respectfully took on with Broken Sword 3 and 4, but that challenge took an awful lot of hard work, change and pressure to pull off.
Bringing Broken Sword to the DS would see pressure and demands lift; in the first instance, Revolution wouldn’t have to keep up with the graphical improvements being made all the time, especially with the release of the next-gen consoles. Confining a game within the 64 bit boundaries could see a lot more being put into other aspects of the game. It would also provide the opportunity for the franchise to downscale towards its original format without being pasted by the critics. The DS has focus on the quality of games, and not by boasting beefy graphics. This is what owners of the machine know and appreciate. They know the boundaries of the system, but they also know that the potential comes from other areas, areas where Broken Sword has thrived off in the past.
Think of Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 3, and take Montfaucon Square, which appears in both games; now think of the comparison. Sure, Broken Sword 3’s Montfaucon Square is huge, but it woefully surrenders on the quality of detail to its older sibling. The fountain looks like a shell in Broken Sword 3, in Broken Sword 1 it looks beautiful- beautifully drawn, detailed, weathered-looking. The square looks ancient, the stonework of the church jumps out at you.
In Broken Sword 3, the fountain is bare, the scenery is dull. The detail just doesn’t exist- it can’t exist, it’s beyond the boundaries of the scale of the game!
This surely must be one of the major points of bringing Broken Sword onto the DS, to give it back its colour, its feeling, its… “Broken Sword-ness”!

Costs

Competing with the likes of Capcom, THQ and Rockstar etc, big companies who produce 5 or 6 major titles every year, was always going to be a battle for Revolution; I’m not suggesting that they have failed, but there are some big fish out there; for how long could they keep boxing with the big-un’s? Making big games means spending big money. Other companies can do that, because they are big, have big teams, big wallets, and big titles.
Realistically, bringing a Broken Sword title to the DS seems a lot more feasible than seeing another title on the PC. The costs would be lower, the scale would be lower; both critical and financial success could happily come of it.

A match made in heaven

The Nintendo DS could have been made specifically to accommodate Broken Sword, it’s almost scary. The possibilities for the game on this system reach far beyond the possibilities of bringing another title to the PC, where most time and effort would be concentrated of bringing you the minimum of what is needed of a game that would be considered up-to-date in mainstream terms. No, on the DS, the fine points of Broken Sword can be done and achieved over and delightfully over. Maybe true mainstream-ness is changing, thanks to the popularity of systems like the DS. If not changing, then at least expanding.

Conclusion

So there we have my long and hopefully not boring analysis of the Nintendo DS and Broken Sword. I will always enjoy and love any Broken Sword game that comes along, because lets face it, we have exceeded the “trilogy” and any extra game is a bonus. I don’t think I am alone in this love affair either, for there are very few games that can claim to be enjoying wide-spread success and future titles past their 10th anniversary.
However, I also doubt I’m alone in saying that my heart might give that slightly bigger leap and flutter if the fifth title falls onto the DS.
Over to you, Revolution!

Back to article list